


Bent At The Bone

by Prevalent_Masters



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Bondage, Booker is mentioned but not present, Bottom Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Cock Warming, F/F, F/M, Fisting, Found Family, Friendship/Love, Gratuitous Smut, Grief/Mourning, Group Sex, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Multi, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rimming, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, gratuitous religious imagery applied to sex, i truly cannot believe i wrote this but here we fucking are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:06:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26118484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prevalent_Masters/pseuds/Prevalent_Masters
Summary: Sometimes everything bottles up, the pressure too much to bear. Sometimes even the simple comforts of ritual don’t drain the storm of stress and anger and grief boiling under his skin. Sometimes even Joe can’t get past the walls to clear out that shaking, frightened, angry thing under the surface, and that’s when Nicky feels like he might just break. Crumble into the dust his bones would be if he’d died when he should have, 920 years ago.Or: Nicky holds everything close to his chest, until he can't anymore. His family helps him let go.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Andy | Andromache/Booker | Sebastien/Nile Freeman/Joe | Yusuf/Nicky | Nicolo, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 21
Kudos: 310





	Bent At The Bone

**Author's Note:**

> This is 11k of absolutely filthy porn, delivered hot and fresh to your door.
> 
> No but really I was gonna write like a 3k pwp and then it grew emotions and got waaaaay kinkier and I just...went with it.
> 
> WARNINGS!
> 
> Group sex! Like, all of them ~~railing Nicky for team bonding purposes~~. Joe/Nicky is still the central pairing, but if you don't like the idea of them all getting down with each other you probably shouldn't read this.
> 
> Super intense/rough sex! Very intense bondage with some light dom/sub dynamics! Nicky is in the submissive role here. If that doesn't float your boat, you probably won't enjoy this.
> 
> Safeword use! If the idea of someone being pushed to that point is stressful to you, you also probably shouldn't read this.
> 
> Using sex to sort out emotions! The situation in this fic isn't everyone's thing, and it isn't necessarily healthy, and you shouldn't try it at home unless you really know what you're doing. This fic portrays a carefully planned, consensual scene and I am in no way implying that the dynamics at play here are standard (or normal in Nicky and Joe's regular sex life). Nevertheless, you shouldn't read about it if it makes you uncomfortable or might be triggering. 
> 
> There is also a brief mention of child sex trafficking (in the context of a mission). Doesn't play into the story and isn't discussed further, but I figured I'd put it here in case.
> 
> More warnings for: lots of crying, run on sentences, bad metaphors, unrealistic orgasm counts.
> 
> Now that that's taken care of...do enjoy. I truly can't believe I'm actually posting this but I guess I kicked my shame off a cliff so here we are. 
> 
> Title is from Feel Let by Velvet Negroni.

**_Until death it is all life._ **

_Don Quixote_

At the end of the mission, he’s shaking. It was hard—there were kids involved. It’s always hard when kids are involved. It was hard, because Joe died, twice, and he had to watch it happen. It was hard because Andy has a thin red streak against the side of her neck, and if it had been even a centimeter to the right she would be dead. It was hard because he’s _tired_ —they’ve been going and going and going, ever since London, Copley providing them an endless parade of missions. They’ve done good, certainly, and he knows, with Andy’s new mortality, that there is a sense of urgency about it all that wasn’t there before, but he’s tired.

And he misses Booker. He hates to admit it—he, after all, was the one who set one hundred years on the table as fair penance. But he misses him, because they’re brothers. He misses him because, after missions like this one, it’s still strange not to have him there, solid beside him. 

He’s on autopilot, though. He drives them to the safe house, Joe slumped half-asleep in the passenger seat. He gets them all out of the car, gets Andy’s neck bandaged, though she tries to wave him away, pushes Joe off to the shower to clean off all the blood marring his beautiful features, deposits a bottle of wine in front of Nile, who looks a little shell-shocked, and throws together a passable meal out of the canned veggies and boxed pasta stocked in the pantry.

He doesn’t realize he’s shaking until after they’ve all finished eating. Joe’s hand covers his gently, the warm touch grounding him.

“Nicky,” he says softly. “You haven't showered. You’ve barely sat down.”

“I’m fine,” he says automatically, but. He’s shaking. 

“Go clean up,” Andy says, and her voice still carries the sound of command, despite her exhaustion, her vulnerability. “Shower, and then sleep. We all need rest.”

“The dishes—“ he starts to protest, but Nile jumps up before he can finish the sentence and heads over to the sink. “I’ve got it. Thanks for cooking.”

Joe’s hand tightens on his own. “My love. Let yourself rest now.”

He caves to Joe, as he always does. Stands, makes his way to the bathroom, tilts his face up to the warm spray and wills it to wash everything away. It doesn’t stop the shaking, though, or the feeling that he’s balanced on a tightrope, holding himself perfectly still, not even breathing, because if he sways just an inch he’ll fall, and fall forever. Because if he moves, he might just crumble under the weight of it all.

Joe cries. He lets himself do that, in front of everyone. He holds people in his arms and he shouts his frustration and his love to the heavens. He’s passionate. He’s emotional. He’s vulnerable. And if all that fails him, he writes poetry. Sometimes very good poetry. Sometimes poetry that gets published under a pseudonym in _The Paris Review._ After London, when they finally made it to a safe house and all collapsed like puppets with their strings cut, Joe held him and cried for hours. 

Booker would get drunk, he’d let loose that way. Andy, Andy would hug them all carefully after missions, and make sure they all spent time together in the aftermath, knitting them together as a family. And she’d leave, if she needed to, take time for herself away from it all, especially after Quynh. Quynh. He remembers her, after difficult battles, crying too. Kissing them all, braiding Andy’s hair, and Nicky’s, too, when it was longer. Tactile comfort. All of them willingly vulnerable, open to each other.

But him. He’s always had trouble with that. He’s reserved, always has been. Shows his love more through actions than words or touch—and he knows his family knows that about him. Knows they read the love he gives to them, knows they don’t care which way he expresses it. He doesn’t like to be vulnerable, doesn’t want to fall apart or let his facade crumble. And usually, he doesn’t need to. Usually, those little rituals after a mission, taking care of his family—the cooking, the cleaning, the bathing, the bottle of wine here, the mended jacket there—usually, that’s enough.

But sometimes everything bottles up, the pressure too much to bear. Sometimes even the simple comforts of ritual don’t drain the storm of stress and anger and grief boiling under his skin. Sometimes even Joe can’t get past the walls to clear out that shaking, frightened, angry thing under the surface, and that’s when Nicky feels like he might just break. Crumble into the dust his bones would be if he’d died when he should have, 920 years ago.

Joe ushers him to bed, kisses him, holds him, grounds him, but despite his exhaustion, he can’t sleep. He stares at the ceiling. He can’t stop shaking. Images roll in his head. A child’s body, Joe’s body. The man who killed him, who Nicky didn’t get to kill in turn. Andy escaping death by the skin of her teeth. He’d wanted to kill everyone in that warehouse, everyone who ever touched that ring of criminals turning kids bodies into commodities, but they’d had to leave quick once things went to shit. They all deserved to die, and yet some of them lived, and would do more evil. Would it have gone differently, he wonders, if Booker had been there? They’d worked so well as a team. His blood sings even as his mind flags with exhaustion.

A train rattles by behind the safe house, the walls and windows shuddering. He sits up. Turns on the light. Picks up a book. Beside him, Joe mumbles and turns his head into the pillow, but he’s a heavy sleeper. Nicky spends many a night like this, awake and thinking too much.

This time, though, Joe blinks awake and hoists himself up on his elbow, staring at him with concern.

“You can’t sleep?” his voice rough and heavy with exhaustion.

“No.”

“What is it?"

“I don’t know.” He sighs. “I don’t know—I feel—I feel like I’m at my breaking point, Yusuf. I feel like I’m on the edge. I’m so tired.” The last part comes out like the gust of a sigh, his voice running out. Joe sits up the rest of the way and moves closer, encircling him with warm arms.

“Do you need us to help you?” he asks softly, lips brushing against the shell of Nicky’s ear.

Does he? Do they have the time for it? When he gets like this, he wants to be taken out of the shell of his own body, taken apart, put back together again. They haven’t done it in a long time, because it’s intense. Because it takes time. Because all of them have to be ready for it, to be feeling it. And there’s no Booker, now, and he was important, and there is Nile, and—good grief, how would they explain it to her? He doesn’t even remember how they explained it to Booker, but it had fallen into place easily enough, then. That was years after they’d met him, though, after his wife was gone, and his first child, after he’d really become a part of their family. Nile is still…so new.

Joe, like he’s reading his mind, murmurs, “If you’re worried about Nile, it can just be me and Andy. Or just me, if that’s what you wanted, but I think it would be good to have Andy, too.”

“I want Booker,” he says, and it’s out of his mouth before he can stop it. He hates the admission, floating in the air between them. Joe lets out a gusty sigh, and it flutters Nicky’s hair against his neck. It’s getting too long. He needs a haircut. He thinks of Quynh, of her long fingers weaving braids, and feels the sick pain of loss in his stomach.

“I know,” Joe says quietly. “I know.”

“I want help,” he says, quieter, that admission heavy, too. “But we can’t stay here.”

Joe shakes his head. “No. But we can take some time before the next mission. I know Andy has a fire under her ass, but I’ll talk to her, okay? I can talk to Nile, too, if you want me to. We can go somewhere safe, and we can take some time. We can help you.”

Nicky sighs again and closes his eyes, melting into Joe’s solid warmth.

“You give so much of yourself, _”_ Joe murmurs. “You give and give and you don’t let yourself crack. I’ve been watching, these last few weeks. You’re not letting yourself _feel_.”

“It’s hard to,” Nicky chokes out, and Joe holds him tighter and kisses the back of his neck and it’s so gentle, so tender he wants to cry. “I know,” he says. “We’ll help you let go.”

* * *

They go to America. They generally try to avoid it, but it’s a good place to hide. The safe houses there are tucked away and secret, so hidden Copley doesn’t even know about a few of them. They choose the cabin in Montana, both Nicky and Andy’s favorite—Nicky’s because of the silence, the towering grey-white mountains, the deer that slip between the trees in the backyard; Andy’s because the wide, unbroken sky and the plains to the east remind her of the steppes she grew up on, too long ago to imagine. They go there, and they have a week, and it is safe.

The first day they spend getting ready. They go to the grocery store in the town nearest to the cabin and stock up on all the ridiculous American things they like to eat, like peanut butter that doesn’t taste at all of peanuts, and marshmallows and too-sweet chocolate and graham crackers for s’mores; and then to the bar with bison heads on the wall and cowboy hats on the customers and pickups with farm dogs in back in the parking lot and very strong drinks. Nile came, to Nicky’s slight surprise. He knows Joe talked to her, but he doesn’t know how much she knows. Doesn’t know if she’s planning on participating. Part of him wonders if she just tagged along to get a little closer to home. She says she’s never been west of the Mississippi. She says she’s always wanted to see the mountains.

The second day they go on a hike, a long, exhausting one. They push up, up, up, mile after mile, until they stand at the top of a peak under that endless sky, staring out at the mountains and lakes and valleys cascading like a rumpled quilt out in front of them, at the flatness of the plains stretching beyond. On the top of the peak, he feels some of the weight slipping from his shoulders. That night, exhausted, he actually sleeps well for the first time in weeks. 

The next morning, Joe wakes him softly, with kisses and an insistent hand stroking him till he finishes and he knows it’s time. Joe guides him by the hand, in nothing but his underwear, to the sunny kitchen where Andy stands at the stove and Nile sits at the table. There’s a cushion on the floor next to one of the vacant chairs. Joe squeezes his hand.

“Will you kneel for me?”

That’s his chance, he knows, to say he’s changed his mind. That he doesn’t need this. That he’s not ready for it, or that he needs another day, maybe. He wonders, briefly, if he should refuse. 

He doesn’t. Instead, he nods and sinks to his knees on the cushion next to Joe’s chair. Joe makes a pleased sound, cards a hand through his hair, and takes his own seat. Andy brings them both a cup of coffee, and a glass of water for Nicky. He looks at Joe questioningly, and he nods. 

“You can drink, and eat. You’ll need your energy. You can talk, too. Just stay down there.”

He nods and brings the coffee to his lips. Black, thick and strong, just as he likes it. He turns to Nile.

“Did they tell you?” he asks.

She nods. “They explained.”

“And…you’re alright with it? You’re here?”

She smiles. “Of course I’m alright with it. It’s your business. I don’t…I don’t know how much I’ll actively be involved, but I wanted to be here for it. I want to be here for you. I’m sorry that you’re hurting.”

He smiles back at her, a drop of warmth enveloping his chest. Nile, so caring so quickly for people she really barely knows. What a gift she is. “Thank you,” he says softly.

Andy hands him a plate of eggs. “Drink that water,” she orders, and sits down on the other chair. He notices the fourth chair isn’t even anywhere in sight, and wonders where they hid it. He obeys, chews on his eggs and toast, though he barely tastes them. Savors the coffee. His pulse rabbits, anticipation and a tiny bit of fear accelerating his heartbeat. What if this doesn’t help him? What if he comes out of it feeling every bit as strained and tired and grieving and angry as he’s been for the last nine months, since Booker’s betrayal? What if it doesn’t work this time, what if it makes him feel worse? What if Nile sees it all and thinks him weak? Loses respect for him? Loses respect for all of them? Leaves?

Joe’s hand settles heavy on his head, carding gently through his hair. “Easy, Nico,” he says. “Drink your coffee.”

“Drink your water,” Andy emphasizes.

“Finish your eggs,” Nile chimes in.

And, right. He has a job to do. He obeys. Joe gets him more coffee. He leans his head against Joe’s leg and drinks it, lets their quiet conversation wash over him. It’s okay. They’ll take care of him. They already are.

When they finish breakfast, Joe pulls him to the bathroom and sticks him in the shower, gets in with him and cleans him gently and thoroughly, batting away Nicky’s hands every time he tries to do anything for himself. He tries to slide to his knees there, to take Joe into his mouth and finish him off because he’s already horny, and so is Joe, he can see it plainly, right there in front of him—but Joe pushes him away, chuckling. “You’ll want to save that,” he says, “You’ll use your mouth plenty later.” It sends a thrill down his spine, leaves him short of breath and trembling. Joe soothes a hand down his back and helps him out of the shower, toweling him dry. “Calm down,” he says. “I’ve got you.”

Joe puts on a pair of joggers and a faded old t-shirt, but he won’t let Nicky even put his underwear back on. Makes sense, but he feels awfully vulnerable walking naked through the cabin. He’s about to be a whole lot more vulnerable, though, so he supposes it doesn’t matter much. He tries to let go.

There’s a spanking bench in the living room, which definitely wasn’t there before. “Where—?” he starts, but Andy just shakes her head and grins like the devil she is, stepping forward. “No questions,” she says. Then, “We thought you’d like it.”

He does. It’s nice, all soft leather and moving parts, looks like it could be anything from a flat table to a chair if you wanted it, all the pieces adjustable. There’s even a headrest, like a massage table, which is pretty luxurious. He licks his lips. “How do you want me?”

“Hands and knees,” Joe says, and gestures towards it. He sees how it’ll work—knees resting on the lower section, hips draped over the cushioned part in the center, his upper body resting on the long upper section. The section where his hips will be is…very high.

He clears his throat. “I’ll be…rather precarious. And. Presented.” He can’t find a better word. Nile stifles a laugh behind her hand and he knows he’s blushing hard, all over his face and chest.

Andy chuckles, too. “Don’t worry. We’ll strap you in. And that’s how we want you.”

Joe nudges his chin, turns his face towards him. “Is it okay?”

He takes a deep breath and nods. “Yes.”

Andy grins and gives him a soft, playful slap on the ass. “Good boy.” 

Joe helps him up and he straddles the bench. It’s unbearably vulnerable, to be naked and draped over this piece of strange furniture, ass up and smooth leather against his skin, but he buries his head in the headrest and closes his eyes and lets them do what they want with him. Because he trusts them. How could he not? They’re his family.

He'd trusted Booker, too, he thinks. Booker did this for him, many times, and he'd trusted him; but he still betrayed them. He tenses, fingers clenching against the headrest.

Joe’s hand—he knows it’s his, knows the callouses on his palms—drags a warm, firm line from shoulder to buttock. “Relax,” he says. “We’ve got you.”

“A bit difficult,” Nicky replies. “When I don’t have any idea what you’re going to do to me.”

Joe chuckles. “That’s part of it, isn’t it? Besides, soon you won’t care.” As if to back up that statement he feels straps come around his legs just below his knees; and his hips, holding him immobile against the bench. He tests them out of instinct, and they don’t give. Not a bit. For a moment, he’s back in that lab, strapped to a table, watching Joe die again, but the hands on him now are gentle, loving—none of that gloved, clinical coldness—and Joe is right here, hands in his hair, lifting his head a bit till their eyes meet, because of course he is, he can read Nicky like an open book, can see right down into his every bit of tension.

“Nico,” he says softly, just for Nicky’s ears alone. “Are you sure you want this? We can do something different if you’re not comfortable.”

Nicky shifts and hisses as something brushes against his dick and realizes Andy is taping a tiny bullet vibrator right behind his ballsack. Oh, Mother Mary. 

Joe’s still staring at him, waiting for an answer. “Yes,” he says, and it gusts out of him like a sigh. “Yes, I want this.”

Joe brushes a kiss over his lips. “Good,” he says. “Then I need you to relax. Give into us, my love. We’ll keep you safe.”

Nicky stares at him, caught in his eyes. “Yes,” he says again, and Joe’s eyes crinkle in a grin. He strokes Nicky’s cheekbone before letting go and turning away to grab something. Then, he crouches in front of him again.

“Give me your hands,” he says, and Nicky lets go of the headrest and holds them out to him. He straps his arms down, one after the other, to the armrests of the bench, palms facing up like in supplication. Nicky feels like he’s bent over begging, or maybe praying. He’s not sure which would be the more accurate metaphor. 

Joe tucks something into his right hand. A small bell. “Hold onto this,” he says. “You won’t be able to talk for…well, a good portion of the time. So if you need us to stop, or to slow down, drop the bell. We’ll be listening for it. If you do, everything stops. No questions asked. Is that good?”

Nicky nods and curls his fingers around the bell, feeling the cool weight of it against the his overheated skin. 

“Good,” Joe says, and stands, carding a hand through Nicky’s hair again. “Now relax. We’re nearly there.”

He tries to obey, letting himself float away a bit to the sounds of their low voices, the rustle as they move around him. Someone rolls a cock ring onto his dick and he shudders, groaning. Andy laughs a little at that and drums her fingers on his ass. Every so often, he hears Nile’s voice, asking a question or commenting on something, but he doesn’t feel her hands on him at all. He wonders if she’ll just watch, and it sends shivers through him. 

A hand in his hair again, and he lifts his head slightly. “Alright,” Joe says, and folds the headrest down. “We won’t be needing that anymore. But tell me, Nico, do you want your sight? It’s up to you.”

He thinks about it for a long moment. Licks his lips. To see them moving around him, to anticipate their actions and read their body language? Or quiet, deep darkness, every touch a surprise, totally helpless? 

He knows what he needs to really lose himself. “I don’t need it,” he says.

“I know that,” Joe replies. “But do you want it?”

He licks his lips again and shakes his head. Joe smiles. “Good,” he says, and then steps forward, lifting something in his hands—an o-ring gag, a large one. “Open up,” he says, and, when Nicky obeys, slots it in between his teeth and buckles it tight. “Okay?” he asks. It’s a stretch, but a good one, and Nicky nods. He feels hands at the back of his head, an insistent tugging, and he arches his neck to follow it.

“Can you hold this position?” Andy, this time, asking the question. It’s difficult, it will make his neck and shoulders hurt after a bit—but again, it’s what he needs. He doesn’t even really want to be asked any of this at this point, he just wants them to make the decisions for him, wants to be taken away from his own free will, but he appreciates that they’re still checking in. That’s part of it, of this agreement, that they’ll be overly-cautious, or at least overly-cautious in his eyes, because they care. So he mumbles out something approximating an affirmative, and Andy secures him like that—a rope, he thinks, from the back of the gag to the strap across his hips. And then, finally, Joe steps forward with the blindfold in his hands—the soft, silky, black one, Nicky’s favorite—and stops in front of him, eyes unreadable.

He lifts a hand and strokes Nicky’s cheek, tender and so gentle it makes Nicky want to cry. 

“You’re beautiful, my Nicolò,” he whispers, and brushes a kiss over each eyelid, so light it feels like the brush of butterfly wings. And then the blindfold takes away his sight and he’s floating in darkness, bound tightly and held firm, and the hands on his skin leave trails of electric energy, and at the first touch of someone’s tongue to his asshole, he lets go. Lets himself relax, the straps and ropes holding him secure as his muscles stop straining, all his focus going to just _feeling_ , and on keeping the fingers of his right hand fisted tightly around that little bell. 

Someone’s eating him out, and he thinks it must be Joe because he knows what this feels like, and Joe is _so good at it_. He groans a little around the saliva pooling in his mouth—he can feel it dripping from the corners and down his chin, knows he must look a wanton mess already, and the thought makes him shiver. The vibrator taped behind his balls, which he’d somehow forgotten about, purrs to life, which almost makes him choke. Then there are fingers in his mouth, swirling around, prodding and insistent and he moans again, drooling around them, sucking as best he can with his mouth held open, flicking his tongue against them. A hand fists his hair and tugs and he groans again because _yes_ , yes he wants to be used, he wants to make them feel good, too, he wants, so terribly badly, to stop thinking and just _feel_.

He feels

the tongue in his ass the vibration through his balls the swell of his cock the warm hands on his hips the leather against his curling toes the bright spots of pain on his scalp where the hand grasps his hair the callouses on the fingers catching against the tender skin of his inner cheeks the sweat slicking the small of his back the drool on his chin down his chest the strain of the muscles in his neck the cool silk of the blindfold against his heated skin his hand curled up in supplication the hard metal of the bell the hand running up and down his back circling over his ass before slapping it softly just enough to send feeling up his spine _feeling_

_he feels_

The tongue in his ass replaced by a slick finger, gentle but insistent; the fingers in his mouth replaced by something thick and heavy and salty—Joe’s cock. Which means Andy must be stretching him open, which means she probably isn’t going to stop until her entire hand can fit inside, because that’s just how she is, and he squirms at the thought of it, choking around Joe.

Firm fingers at the back of his head, pressing him down slowly, inexorably. And what does it matter if Andy’s going to fist him, what does it matter if he chokes around Joe’s cock? They are making the decisions, now, and they’ll keep him safe. They’ll give him what he needs. They won’t do anything they know he can’t handle. 

He relaxes, let’s Joe slip down his throat, breathes through his nose, relishes the sound Joe makes—a deep, breathy moan above him. “Yes,” Joe whispers above him, slipping into Arabic, “You’re so good, Nicolò, so good, if only you could see yourself right now…” He groans around Joe’s cock as Andy adds another finger and pistons straight into his prostate, hips bucking with nowhere to go.A hand, planted firmly on his lower back, holds him even more immobile, heavy, possessive. Andy adds a third finger with hardly any preparation, and his skin sings with the burn of it. He’s so hard he feels about to burst, and they’ve barely even started.

But there’s nothing on his cock, no stimulation at all, and, given the situation, he’s not likely to get any. No, Andy will keep slamming into his prostate with her characteristic determination and that maddening vibrator will keep buzzing against his swollen balls and Joe will keep fucking his mouth and he won’t even be able to twitch his hips, given the straps and the hands holding him down, and he’s just going to have to take it, come untouched if he wants to come at all. Andy pistons into him particularly hard and then slows, spreading her fingers, spreading _him_ , and he groans and chokes on Joe’s cock again. “Easy,” Joe says, still in Arabic, cupping the back of his head with excruciating gentleness. “Easy. Breathe through your nose. Swallow.”

Breathe. Swallow. Easy orders to follow. He does so. He twitches his hips, desperate for something to rub his cock against. There’s nothing but a firm, stinging slap on his ass for his troubles.

“Greedy,” Andy remarks from behind him. “You can come as much as you want, but you do it how we want. Stop trying to get more.”

He moans helplessly, swallowing around Joe. His nose is nestled all the way down in the wiry hair around Joe’s dick and Joe’s hand is tightening in his hair, and he knows what that means, so he swallows around him again, and then Andy stretches her fingers out again and slips in a fourth, and he groans, loud and long. Joe, in response, tugs hard at his hair, sending pain shooting through his scalp, and groans too, stiffening. He can _feel_ his cock twitch in his throat as he comes, and for a moment he really can’t breathe, nose crushed against Joe and throat still full of him. When Joe’s grip finally loosens and he pulls out, Nicky’s gasping for breath and fallen deep into the hurricane of feeling bombarding him. He barely registers Joe petting his hair as he gasps for air, or sticking his fingers in his mouth and swirling them, dragging out some of his own come and smearing it over his stretched lips. 

“Okay,” he hears Nile’s voice, distantly, hardly able to focus. “That was hot.”

“I told you,” Joe replies, sounding out of breath and smug. “I told you he likes knowing people are watching, too.” _That_ statement gets through to his brain, and he can’t stop himself from moaning again, because Joe’s right, the fact that Nile’s here…that she’s watching this, watching _him_ fall apart like this…that she thinks it’s hot, not totally debasing and disgusting….all of it makes him _burn_.

“Do you want to help?” Joe asks. “You could give him something to do with his mouth.” Footsteps, then, and her smell—like clean laundry and lavender. The loss of sight makes sound and smell so much stronger. Soft fingers stroke his cheek. “Nicky?” Nile asks. “Do you mind?”

He groans again and tries to lean into her touch, as much as he can. Joe chuckles. “You don’t need to ask. If he didn’t want you, he wouldn’t have said it was okay to be here. Besides, we make the decisions here, not him. It’s up to what _you_ want.”

Andy twists her fingers wickedly and Nicky chokes again around a gasp. The fingers on his cheek trail down and grip his chin firmly, and then Andy twists again and he looses track of things until something huge and hard slips through his lips and hits the back of his throat and he understands his job is to get this thing as soaking wet as possible because, sooner or later, it’s going to be inside him. Probably after Andy stops _torturing him_ —and then he _screams_ around it and spasms against the restraints because turns out the vibrator was on its lowest setting, and it’s just rocketed up two more and it’s too much and so much and not enough, because his dick—it _hurts_ he’s so hard, but there isn’t anything—there isn’t enough, he almost never can come untouched, but what Andy’s doing is so—it’s so _much_ , and those firm hands are back, pressing him into the bench, and the toy—the dildo, the plug, whatever it is—is stuffing his mouth so perfectly, and Nile, standing over him, smells so good, and he can still taste Joe in his mouth, in the back of his throat and _Oh—_

He’s coming. Breath and shout muffled around the toy in his mouth, desperate writhing impossible against the restraints. His dick is still hard, he can feel it, he’s not even sure he actually ejaculated, but he can feel his hole clenching hard around Andy’s fingers and the pleasure zips up and down his spine, making him shake. As he relaxes slightly in the aftermath, Andy slips in her thumb, tucked tightly in against her other four fingers, and he groans again at the overstimulation, at the buzz of the vibrator that hasn’t abated, and Joe’s voice saying, “Good, Nico, good, you’re so good, how did that feel?”

He can’t say anything, just let out a choked whimper and buck against the restraints, trying to get away from Andy’s hand. Joe’s hands, then, heavy on his hips, his back, holding him down. “Hush,” he says, “Don’t struggle. You can take it.”

His mind is descending into that haze he craves, a quiet, slow space, a place where all that matters is the voices of his family reassuring him, reminding him of what he needs, where thoughts drop away and feeling takes over. He obeys. He relaxes. Andy slips deeper. Someone strokes his sweaty hair. His cock hurts with how hard he is, every nerve ending singing from arousal, and he sinks into it. He lets it take him away. 

“Good,” Joe says again, and it is. 

He doesn’t know how long Andy fists him. He looses time, floating on sensation and touch. She stretches him slowly, carefully, with her fingers still bunched together, before finally pushing up and making a real fist, pumping it carefully as he groans. She challenges him, pushes him to his limits, but she never hurts him. The feeling is just on the edge of too much, in a thrilling way—to be so full, to be so fully connected to another person, to be so trusting. Her hand inside of him. To give himself up like this. He feels tears gathering behind the blindfold, and he welcomes them. This is what he needs. To feel. To let go. 

It’s building up again. The pressure, the sensations, the tight coil in his belly. At some point, the vibrator turns up again and that’s what spills the tears over, finally, soaking the blindfold with wet heat. But still, no stimulation to his aching, painful cock, and what’s Joe doing, he wonders in a brief moment of clarity; just standing there, twiddling his thumbs? 

As it turns out, he’s crouched down next to Nicky, mouth right up against his ear, whispering. “I wish you could see yourself, Nico,” he says again. “I have never seen anything so amazing in my life. I want to paint you, my love—you belong in a museum.”

Nicky whimpers, weak for his words. His voice is gravel, low with arousal. “Yes,” he breathes. “I could keep you here forever, keep you just like this, take what I need from you and give you everything you need back—“

Joe’s voice. Andy’s fist, pumping, kneading at his prostate without pause. It’s too much. He can hardly believe it, but he comes again, arching up with a weak cry, bucking so hard the strap over his hips breaks. His head falls forward, untethered, caught by Nile’s hands, and he thrusts himself against the bench, his dick _finally_ rubbing up against it, the friction sending him spiraling further, the orgasm unfurling and long, leaving him shaking and sobbing around the toy still stuck in his mouth.

“Oh my,” Andy says, amusement coloring her voice. “That was quite a display.”

Fingers tap against his ass. “That wasn’t very good behavior,” Joe says. “Breaking the nice bench we found for you.”

He tries to apologize, but of course it is muffled entirely. His ears ring. He feels wrung out and tender, oversensitive, and yet Andy’s fist is still in his ass and that vibrator is still buzzing away. He twists, taking advantage of his newfound freedom, trying fruitlessly to get away from it, even though he can still barely move. Hands grab his hips and force him back down, accompanied by a firm slap to his ass. 

“Be still,” Joe orders, firm, and he obeys, mind buzzing. “You’ll hurt yourself. She’s got her whole arm in you.”

Andy laughs. “An exaggeration. I’m going to pull out now, okay Nicky?”

He gasps, whimpers, nods. She shifts her hand, slides it out, leaves him feeling empty and gaping, the cool air strange against his hole. He shudders, shaking.

“We’ll leave this on, though,” Joe says, and taps the vibrator to an even higher setting. Nicky jerks against the hands holding him down, squirming to get away, because it’s too much, it _hurts_ , but Joe holds him firm. “You can’t come this time until I say you can,” Joe says, “Since you cheated.” Nicky wants to tell him that coming again is the last thing on his mind right now, but he can’t—he probably couldn’t form a word even if his mouth was free. 

There’s a rustling sound, and the bench shakes slightly before his hips are secured again, even tighter than before. A hand fists in his hair and jerks his head back roughly, leaving him gasping. 

“Has he been sucking it?” Joe asks, and Nile answers, voice a little breathy, “He’s drooling around it.”

“That’s good,” Joe says, and tugs the toy out of his mouth. He chokes a little, coughs, gasps. Feels the saliva dripping down his chin. “He’s a picture, isn’t he, Nile?”

Fingers touch the saliva on his chin, dip into his mouth, run down his neck. “Yeah,” she says. “He’s coming apart.”

“Exactly what he wanted,” Joe says, and shoves the toy into his ass. It’s a huge plug, and though it’s not quite as wide as Andy’s fist, it fits neatly in the space left behind. He sighs, and drops his head again, grunting as the muscles in his neck protest. Firm fingers run up and down the tendons, easing the tension, and he sighs again, relaxing into it, dropping back down into the hazy, syrupy quiet. 

“Well then,” Joe muses. “What should we do with your mouth now, hmm?”

Someone’s fiddling with the plug, pushing it in and out a bit, prodding the end so it settles against his prostate just so. He groans again, whimpers. Too much. He’s still crying.

Fingers swipe at the wetness below the blindfold and then Joe’s speaking into his ear again, voice gentle. “Remember,” he says. “You have the bell. You just have to drop it.”

Weakly, he shakes his head. It’s a lot, it’s too much—but he doesn’t want it to end. 

“Alright,” Joe says, and guides his head forward. “In that case, you’re going to keep my cock warm for me. Don’t suck, don’t tease, don’t _move_. Just hold still.”

He has to tongue at it a little, as he adjusts to the weight of Joe’s soft cock filling his mouth, but then he stills, as directed. Quiets, and floats along to the sensation of being filled at both ends, of being used. Someone’s fucking him shallowly with the plug and someone else is kneading at his asscheeks, delivering a smack every so often. It becomes a game, to hold steady when those unpredictable hits land, to not shift his tongue or breathe in too hard, to hold still with Joe’s dick in his mouth. It’s the only thought in his mind, and it’s wonderful.

And then he learns that the plug also vibrates and almost shoots out of his own skin. Joe grips his hair and holds his head steady as his body writhes and he sobs around him, gasping. It’s still too soon, his body singing with sensitivity after his last massive orgasm, but he can feel himself getting hard again, partially aided by the cock ring, which never let him fully soften. He tries to speak around Joe, to say _something_ , to beg, to plead, but Joe tuts at him. “Ah-ah—I told you to hold still. And besides, you can’t come, anyway. Calm down.”

Oh, no. _Oh._

The plug has different settings, different patterns, and they try them _all_. Andy, he thinks, can absolutely tell which ones drive him to a shivering mess the fastest, so of course she uses them, at the highest intensity, over and over again, cycling through. He’s shaking and panting and fully hard again and Joe’s holding his head in a vice grip and he’s trying _so hard_ to be good, to stay still, but Joe’s cock is swelling on his tongue despite himself, because he can’t stop moaning, he can’t stop his shaking. Eventually Joe pulls out, after he’s fully hard again, and lets his head drop forward. He lets it hang, drooling on the floor and sobbing out gasps because he’s close again, somehow, but there’s no way he can come untouched again, just no way, so how long are they going to torture him—

Someone swallows his dick down in one go and he _howls_. 

All the stimulation he’s been desperate for, all at once. It’s too much. He’s going to come, he's going to come, _he’s coming_ —

The mouth pulls off, a firm grip around the base of his cock, so tight it hurts. “Hey,” Joe says, and he can hear the satisfied smile in his voice. “I told you—no coming until we say so.”

He sobs and thumps his foot down against the leather. Someone takes a hold of his ankle and holds him down. He tries to say _please_ , but it comes out too garbled to even be considered a word.

“Relax,” Joe says again, like he’s been saying from the beginning, like Nicky can do anything of the sort right now. “We’ve got you. We know what you need.” He sucks him down again—because of course it’s Joe sucking him off, only Joe has that kind of nonexistent gag reflex. He has to put every fiber of his being into not coming at once. The plug pulses in his ass. The vibrator tortures his balls. Joe pulls off and runs delicate fingertips over the swollen head of his cock and Nicky stops breathing, starts again, chokes, cries.

“You’re doing so well,” Joe coos.

“Taking it like a champ,” Andy adds.

“Wow,” Nile says, and she sounds awestruck.

It goes like that. Joe sucks him, hard—fifteen seconds, thirty seconds, a torturous minute. When Nicky thinks he can’t hold on any more, when he feels the orgasm curling in his gut, Joe pulls off. Teases him with his hands. Tickles his balls. The plug continues its maddening circle through the settings. He’s a bow, pulled taut, ready to let the arrow fly. Joe swallows him. He cries. The plug pushes against his prostate. He doesn’t think he knows his own name anymore. Joe tongues at the head of his cock, at the slit where precome leaks. He groans. The plug turns off entirely and he almost gets out a sigh of relief before it turns back on, stronger than before. He thinks he might die. 

Then, Joe takes him deep, all the way to the root—and pulls off the cock ring as he slides off. Takes him deep again. Swallows once, twice. His toes curl. His fists are shaking. Everything is feeling, his entire body, his brain, one massive nerve ending tuned to nothing but pleasure.

Joe pulls off again. “Come,” he says simply, and takes Nicky’s cock in his hand, and Nicky obeys, and it is like being hit by lightning.

He comes back to himself slowly. The plug is still in his ass, but it isn’t vibrating anymore. The vibrator behind his balls is, blessedly, gone. There are gentle hands in his hair, stroking it away from his face, unbuckling the gag, easing it out of his mouth. Thumbs dig into his jaw, releasing some of the tension, and he manages to close his mouth most of the way, working out the stiffness, wincing. He can’t lift his head up. He can’t move anything, he thinks. Gingerly, he manages to unclench the fingers of his left hand and they curl uselessly. 

“Nico,” Joe says softly. “How do you feel?”

“Mmmmm,” he manages, and with great effort he turns his head enough to nuzzle into Joe’s wrist. Behind him, he hears Andy’s laugh. 

“I think that’s good,” she says. 

“Okay, hold on. We’re going to move you,” Joe says, and then he lifts Nicky’s head a bit and sets it back down—miraculously!—on the headrest. He sighs in relief, his neck and shoulders relaxing. “Do you want the blindfold off?”

“No,” he mumbles immediately, because he doesn’t, he wants to float here in this quiet, dark world forever, and let Joe take care of things. Dimly, he recognizes that the straps over his legs and hips are gone, that Joe is undoing his arms from their bindings and stretching them out. He feels a slight twinge of pain, but it’s far overshadowed by the quiet contentment. There’s a shift and a creak, and the part of the bench pushing his hips so high lowers until he’s lying almost flat on his stomach. His hips twinge a little more than his arms did, but it’s still barely a blip in his consciousness. 

He thinks he might have drifted off until Joe whispers they’re going to turn him over. He groans, and then he’s leaning up against something solid and there’s a straw between his lips. “Drink,” Joe orders, and he feels the reverberation of his voice through his back. He does, tentatively at first, then faster when the cool water hits his dry mouth and throat. He hears Nile’s snort of laughter. “Not so fast,” she says. “Take it slow.”

He tries, but he still drains the glass in less than a minute. “More?” Joe asks, and he nods.

“Are you done?” Joe asks after a few minutes go by, Nicky a dead weight against his chest, just breathing. “Or do you want to keep going?”

He hums. It’s hard to think. He doesn’t want to make the decisions. Isn’t that what this is all about? “Do you have more for me?”

Joe chuckles, and it’s dangerous. “We have as much as you want.”

“You know us,” Andy’s voice comes from somewhere to his left. “We could go for days.”

They have, before. He remembers it fondly. With Booker, it was—

With Booker.

His chest drops with heaviness. Unhappiness curls in his belly. His breath hitches, and he moves one heavy hand to clutch at Joe’s arm where it’s wrapped around his belly. “Keep going,” he says. 

Joe’s breath hitches, too. He strokes the side of Nicky’s face. “You astound me, Nicolò _._ You are incredible.”

He huffs a laugh and shakes his head. “No. You are.”

“Whatever you say,” Joe says. “More water?”

He shakes his head.

“Alright. I’m going to lay you back down. We’ll get you ready. Just relax, you’re doing so well. So good for us. Is there anything you want? Need?”

He hesitates. “No more gags?”

A hand cards through his hair. “We weren’t planning on it. Your words?”

“Istanbul to slow down. Malmo to stop. Can I keep the bell? I like it.”

“Of course. We’ll listen for it.”

"I love you," he says, and Joe pauses. He can feel his heart beating for a moment before he kisses him, open mouthed and filthy and gentle all at the same time. "I love you, too," he says as he pulls away, and Nicky smiles.

Joe slips out from behind him and lays him down flat. There’s movement around him again but he tunes it out, barely notices them moving him, lifting his legs, looping rope around his ankles, guiding his hands above his head and tying his wrists to the top of the bench. He’s floating, peaceful. He will not let the pain overtake him. He will not think about those who are missing, who are gone, who will be gone. He will take what they can give him until he can’t anymore.

Someone tugs at him a little, his head tipping back off the bench. Almost immediately, Joe’s dick slips back into his mouth, still half-hard, and he groans around it. This angle is better, much better, for his throat, and it’s not so hard to accommodate Joe as he slides in. He almost didn’t remember the plug was still up his ass until it buzzes back to life, shocking him, and he jumps against the ropes, testing their limits. The previous position was more strict, much tighter. Now, his legs are held open, his arms secured, but he’s free to twist and squirm as the vibrations build, though he can’t fathom actually getting hard again, let alone coming. Still, it feels good. They keep the vibrator on a low setting, and Joe gently fucks his mouth, and someone’s fingers trail light patterns across his chest, brushing his nipples, pinching them, making him groan. He drifts back down, surrenders to the sensations. 

Fingers wrap around his soft cock, light and teasing, circling the head so lightly it almost tickles. He groans around Joe and Joe lifts his head, pushing himself deep. Nicky chokes around him, but Joe doesn’t let go, doesn’t withdraw. “Relax,” he murmurs again, “I’ve got you. Just breathe.” 

He obeys. He breathes. He gives into the steady vibrations against his prostrate, the insistent hands on his cock. He moans against Joe, and Joe groans back, hands on his face, petting him. He swallows around Joe, and Joe’s cock swells, filling his mouth. The hand on his dick grows more insistent, coaxing him towards hardness, the vibrations grow stronger. 

Joe pulls out abruptly, and the vibrations stop at the same time, the plug pulled out of his ass with a suddenness that makes him cry out. His hole feels empty, gaping. Joe chuckles and taps the end of his dick against Nicky’s cheek.

“You look desperate, Nico. What do you want?”

He licks his lips, the taste of Joe strong in his mouth, his scent almost overpowering. “I want you,” he croaks. “I want you inside of me.”

Joe laughs and moves away. Nicky immediately misses his warmth. “Of course you do,” he says, “you’re insatiable.” He groans in response. 

“We’re gonna give you everything,” Joe says. “Everything you want.” 

Without warning, something hot and tight slides down over his dick and it’s _so much_ , _so good,_ he screams. Fingers fill his mouth again, muffling his cries, and he gags around them. Hands anchor themselves on his chest, plucking at his nipples, and then Andy—because that’s who it must be, Andy on top of him, riding him—starts moving. He cries out again, muffled, mouth full, and bucks up into her, but hands on his hips still his movements and then—yes. That’s Joe, finally inside of him, finally, _finally_ fucking him. And that must mean it’s Nile’s fingers in his mouth, pumping in and out, keeping him full. He sucks around them as Joe picks up a punishing pace, in exact opposition to Andy’s rhythm. Either Joe’s nailing his prostate or Andy’s grinding down on him, no break, no room to breathe, no ceasefire. He lets it happen, because he has no choice. He floats, held between them, dizzy and twitching, their touches electric. 

Nothing in the world exists but them, together. The places they touch. Everything else falls away, and there’s just quiet left behind.

Andy clenches down around him and lets out a guttural, feral growl, hips stuttering. He arches up into her. Joe pushes his leg back and thrusts in at a new angle, hips snapping faster, breath shattering. 

Andy comes first, fucking herself through her orgasm, fingernails cutting into the skin of his shoulders and collarbones where she hangs on. She clenches around him, her orgasm lasting for what feels to him like minutes, and Joe slams into him, jostling his entire body. It’s too much. It’s just enough. He comes, body arching under them, crying out weakly around Nile’s fingers. Everything is wiped away—his body tingles with aftershocks, with the warmth of Andy, hunched over him, with Joe still nailing his prostate, prolonging his orgasm even as his toes curl from oversensitivity, using him to get off. 

He thinks he might actually die. He wouldn’t be surprised if his heart did stop, but maybe he just passed out for a moment, or floated so far away from his own body and mind that he left them entirely, if only for a moment. 

Taken apart entirely.

_Bliss._

He doesn’t even notice Joe coming, which is unfortunate because he loves that—loves watching it, feeling it, hearing it. He doesn’t notice much of anything until he feels someone—Andy, probably—mouthing at his nipples, Joe kissing his knee. He tries to lift his head, but once again he’s been rendered immobile, so he just lies there. Andy’s weight slips off him and he shivers in the absence of her warmth. Joe laughs, runs a palm from his pelvis all the way up to his neck.

“Good?” he asks, and it’s breathless. Nicky can’t muster anything more than a breathy groan in reply.

“You know,” Andy says, musing. “There’s nothing I like more than multiple orgasms. I think you can help me with that, can’t you, Nicky? After we've given you so many, it’s only fair.”

“Mmmm,” he groans mindlessly, voice hoarse and barely there, still breathing hard. 

“That’s right,” she says, and tugs him down by his hips so his head rests on the bench again. He feels the heat of her against his face at first, and then she’s lowered herself onto him, rubbing against his face, and he gasps, still seeing stars behind the blindfold from his last orgasm His tongue finds her clit and he licks against it, sucks it into his mouth, relishes the sound of her groans above him, her fist in his hair, guiding him, the heaviness of her as she grinds her whole self against his mouth. 

There’s something so intimate about eating someone out, the same as sucking dick. Worshipful, he thinks. He wants to make them feel good, wants to drown himself in them, wrap himself up in their taste and scent and sound and feel. Give himself to them, body and soul. He licks into Andy and she gasps, stuttering against him. Fingers slip into him again, a hand once again teasing his dick, but he barely notices. He’s so spent, and the two—or is it three?—fingers in him are a small intrusion after everything his asshole’s been through. His dick is sensitive, the light brush of fingers wet with lube absolutely maddening, but the most he can do is twitch. He’s too tired to move away, and he’s too focused on Andy to care much, anyway.

Andy cries out, grinds down into him, hard, crushes against his nose. For a long moment, he can’t breathe at all and his mind spirals from the lack of air, every sensation full of nothing but her, like he’s eating her whole. She eases after a moment and he sucks in air through his nose, choking against her, but she smoothes fingers through his hair and leans down, her breath whispering against his cheek—“You’re so good, Nicky,” she says, and the words of affirmation from her send chills down his spine. “So good for us. I want you to understand how good you are. I want you to let us take care of you, the way you take care of us.”

Tears soak the blindfold again. Andy doesn’t do verbal affirmation often; a “good work” from her after a mission is akin to glowing praise. To hear her say this, to praise him, feels like a balm against a wound he didn’t know he had.

“You gonna make me come again, Nicky? I know you can.”

“Yes,” he groans against her, and though he knows she can’t hear it, she still responds—“Good boy.”

She grinds down again. He flicks his tongue, licks her everywhere he can reach with his head held immobile between her thighs. She sighs. Moans.

He thinks, quite suddenly, that this might be the last time. The last time with Andy. They don’t do this very often, he doesn’t _need_ it very often, and this might be it.

That thought crashes him firmly back into his body, back into his mind, and even though he’s overwhelmed with pleasure and can feel another orgasm—somehow—building, suddenly it’s too much. He can’t breathe and his body hurts and Andy is above him, vital and alive and beautiful, but she is mortal and everything seems, suddenly, to be coming to an end.

_Everything that lives must die._

The fingers of his right hand uncurl, stiff and reluctant. He drops the bell. It chimes as it hits the floor, high and musical and innocent, jarringly different from all the other sounds in the room.

Andy's off him before he can even process her movement, leaving him gasping for breath, face soaked. The hands that were teasing his dick are gone, the fingers up his ass are busy untying the ropes around his ankles, someone loosens his wrists and his arms drop, shoulders screaming with pain. Someone’s speaking Genoese, low in his ear, hand carding through his hair. “Nicolò, my Nico, are you alright? What do you need? Do we need to stop?”

Breathless, he nods, and the blindfold slips off. He keeps his eyes screwed shut, knows the light will hurt after all that blessed darkness; the real world will be painful after he has dropped into that quiet, private place. “Nico, my love, I need you to talk to me.” Someone has his hands, lifting his arms up, rubbing gentle circles where the rope dug in. He shudders in a breath. Another. Then—“Andy.”

A touch to his cheek. “I’m here.”

He reaches for her blindly with one aching arm, feels the edge of a shirt, a warm shoulder. “Andy,” he says again, and then he’s crying. 

“Did I hurt you, Nicky?” she asks, and he shakes his head, and pulls her closer to him. Realizes that this, this grief, is responsible for the rolling anger under his skin, the displacement, the feeling that everything is _wrong_. He’d thought it was Booker, and it is, a bit. He’d thought it was the trauma of the lab, the possibility of being separated from Joe forever, and it is, a bit. He’d thought it was Nile, the tender insecurity of learning a new person, and it is, a bit. But under it all, the thing that both preoccupies him every moment of the day and the thing he is also, somehow, ignoring—Andy is mortal. Andy will die soon. Andy will die and they will continue on without her, because they will have to, because they will have no choice. And it would not be so terrible, if they were all lucky enough to be mortal, to be _human;_ if death was coming for all of them sooner rather than later. But they are not, and they will have to watch her go, and he is so tired. He’s only lived for a fraction of what she has, and he is so, so tired.

“Please,” he says nonsensically, and opens his eyes. To his surprise, it doesn’t hurt, because it’s dusk outside, the room lit only by a few dim lamps, the shadows deep. He looks at them through his tears, and they look concerned, terrified, even.

“I’m okay,” he tries to reassure them, which probably isn’t very convincing. “But—I just—you’re going to die.” 

She blinks at him, and then her face crumples, and she’s pressing him to her, holding his limp, tired body and cradling his head against her shoulder. He starts to cry—really cry, now, to _sob_ —and behind him he hears Joe let out a little broken exhale and lean forward to rest his forehead against the nape of Nicky’s neck. Nile—who was the one rubbing the feeling back into his wrists—slips her hands into his and squeezes, holds tight.

He cries for a long time, and he’s crying for them all. For Andy, certainly, but also for the rest of them, who will have to learn to live without Andy. For Booker, who’s grief he understands, who may never see Andy again. For Nile, who had to come to them when they were so broken. For Quynh, who he misses every day, whose fate was cruel and unfair and a testament to the curse this life can be. For Lykon, who he never even knew. For Joe, his Yusuf, who loves so fiercely and gives him everything, and who may someday die before him, or after him, because no matter how strongly he believes in fate, how can he really know they will die together? He cries because he is tired, and they have millennia left to go. He cries because he hasn’t cried in a long, long time—not after London, nor since; and not for a long time before that, either.

He cries because he loves them. And he cries because he feels loved back, and sometimes to be loved and cherished and protected is a little heartbreak of its own.

They hold him, and they let him cry. He feels guilty, distantly, that he didn’t get Andy off again, and that he never even thought about Nile, but his consciousness is spiraling away from him, his body and mind giving it up after what he’s put them through, and eventually Joe scoops him up and brings him to bed, Andy trailing them because Nicky won’t let go of his grip on her tank top, Nile trailing her because she looks frightened to be alone. Joe lays him out on the cool sheets and wipes the sweat and lube and come and spit off with a damp washcloth, and Andy sits against the headboard with his head in her lap, stroking his hair, and Nile curls on his other side, her head resting against his stomach, still holding his hand, and Joe pulls him close with an arm across his waist, and he falls asleep tangled in his family and doesn’t dream.

* * *

He wakes once, to Andy moving away, and clutches at her. He falls back into sleep before he knows whether she stays. Again to Joe holding a cup of water to his lips, urging him to drink, kissing him after he does. Again, to warm morning light streaming over the bed and only Nile left, still curled down by his left hip, and decides he doesn’t want to pull himself out of sleep just yet. 

He wakes fully, finally, alone. The dusty light of evening slants through the windows, the golden hour illuminating the branches of trees and blades of grass like things touched by God. He drags himself out of bed, wincing at the stiffness in his joints—any lingering soreness or marks left from the day before are long since healed, but his body still feels languorous and used up—in a good way, though. He needs a shower, but that can wait a few more minutes. He stretches, slips on a pair of Joe’s sweatpants and a t-shirt he last saw Nile wearing, and shuffles out to the kitchen. 

Nile, leaned up against the counter with a beer in hand, sees him first and smiles shyly. Then Joe turns and springs to his feet. He comes to him and stops a little short of embracing him, cupping his cheek with a hand.

“How are you?”

Nicky smiles. “Good,” he says, and it’s the truth. He feels lighter, cleaner. The grief lingers, and the exhaustion, but now he has shared it with them and the pressure is released, leaving him scrubbed clean and new. And besides, he thinks, it is useless to grieve now. They have years ahead of them, still. They will keep Andy alive and they will take each minute as the gift that it is. And after? They will go on. It will be excruciating, at first, but they will still have each other. Nile, this gift of a warrior. Booker, who is still their brother, who always will be, who will come back to them. And Joe. His Joe, who gives him each day like a gift, who will stand by him through all that dark and turbulent future yet to come. Why grieve now, when there is still so much to live for?

Joe laughs and leans in to kiss him, a soft brush of lips. “You slept for a full day. We thought we might have killed you.”

“As good as,” Nicky says, and Joe sobers. “Was it too much?” he asks.

Nicky shakes his head. “No, it was perfect. I needed to feel that, I needed to get to that point, I needed to—“ he swallows, turns his gaze to Andy where she still sits at the table, watching them. They’ve brought the fourth chair back, his place at the table returned like it was never gone. He holds out a hand to her and she comes to him, lets him cup her jaw and look at her. She looks back. The fire in her eyes hasn’t changed one bit—in fact, it’s brighter than he’s seen it since they lost Quynh. 

“I needed to accept it,” he says. “I was pretending it wasn’t real, I was forcing myself to not think about it, and it was eating me up inside. I needed to cry. I needed to hold you.”

There are tears in her eyes now, though she doesn’t let them fall. Andy doesn’t cry in front of people, and it seems to work out fine for her. Still, she lifts her own hand and cradles his jaw, too, mirror images of each other, looking into each others’ eyes. “Oh, Nicky,” she whispers. “I’m not gone yet.”

“I know,” he says. “We still have time.”

She nods, but doesn’t break their gaze. “You know I don’t mind,” she says. “I’ve been here for a long time. I’m not sorry it’s coming to an end. I’m only sad about the people I’m leaving behind.” Quynh seems a solid presence around them, her shadow heavy over the room. 

Joe curls an arm around Nicky’s shoulders and takes Andy’s other hand in his, drawing them all close. They lean against each other, breathing, for a long moment, and then pull away. Nile looks at them from across the room, uncertain.

Nicky holds out a hand to her. “I’m sorry you’ve come to us in such a time,” he says. “I promise we are usually not this…strange.”

She laughs and sets aside the beer, crossing the room to them and wrapping her arms around his neck, squeezing tightly.

“Not so strange,” she says. “Just human.” And Nicky feels the lightness of her words in his soul.

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a tumblr.](https://prevalent-masters.tumblr.com)


End file.
